Communism and socialism embrace a revolutionary ideology. They are both committed to transforming capitalism from a free market economy to a planned centralized economy, whether by revolution or through the long process of problematization, destruction of the present order, and replacement with Marxian-socialism.[1] Democratic socialists believe this change can happen through the democratic process. However, their ideology is still revolutionary in that they are not trying to improve the capitalist republic of America, which relies heavily on personal responsibility and a market economy. Instead, they seek to replace it with shared ownership that aligns with communal and collectivist socialism and a centrally controlled economy involving production or production and distribution. They consider socialism to be superior to capitalism.
Communists and socialists are unlikely to speak out against leftist revolutionary riots and are even quite likely to speak in favor of them (usually couching their favor as having some justification because of the disparities of capitalism). Speaking that is justifiable for the left to use violence, Herbert Marcuse said, “If they use violence, they do not start a new chain of violence but try to break an established one . . . no third person, and least of all the educator and intellectual, has the right to preach them [sic] abstention.”[2] Accordingly, they accept rioting that costs billions in loss of property and human lives as justifiable if done by the left.
And like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) proclaim a peaceful transition to socialism, Marxism also permits a peaceful transition to socialism if possible. In an interview with Marcuse about violence and revolution and a change to socialism by a vote of the people, Helen Hawkins said, “The kind of social change your critical philosophy would lead toward might involve the necessity for revolution.” . . . Marcuse responded, “Well, we cannot, if we look at history, we cannot find any example of a non-violent revolution, including the American Revolution. So, we cannot expect that this continuity of violence would suddenly stop. Although Marx himself has foreseen the possibility of a peaceful transition to socialism. And he has even mentioned this connection, the United States, as one of the countries where, by democratic vote, socialism could gain a majority“[3] (italics added).
Reading the literature of socialists and Marxists, one is struck by the similarity in goals and terminology, such as ending alienation, producing real freedom, equality, equity, democracy, solidarity, a humanized economy, restructuring society, accepting violence of defense, ending capitalism, discrimination, and environmental destruction, creating a more humane society, a humane international social order, and socialists speak of humanized capitalism–socialism–just like Marxists. In describing a peaceful revolution, Marcuse says, “To extend the base of the student movement, Rudi Dutschke has proposed the strategy of the long march through the institutions: working against the established institutions while working in them.”[4]
In the quest to establish more institutional avenues to disseminate Marxism (he calls these counter-institutions), Marcuse writes, “The time of the wholesale rejection of the ‘liberals’ has passed–or has not yet come. Radicalism [Marxism] has much to gain from the ‘legitimate’ protest against the war, inflation, and unemployment, from the defense of civil rights–even perhaps from a ‘lesser evil’ in local elections. The ground for the building of a united front is shifting and sometimes dirty–but it is there.”[5] To think that Marxists will not work with others whom they will ultimately destroy is naive of those watching from the sidelines and terminal for those who help to advance socialism or Marxian-Socialism because they hold many of the same goals as Marxism.
Here is an example of the mutual goals of Marxism and DSA. DSA says, “We are activists committed to democracy as not simply one of our political values but our means of restructuring society . . . We call this vision democratic socialism – a vision of a more free, democratic and humane society. We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo . . . we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships.”[6]
The terminology and the problems laid out in this paragraph could have been easily written by a Marxist who regularly refers to democracy, pursuing democracy and Marxism as socialism. In 1929, on the Bolshevik Revolution’s anniversary, even Stalin wrote, “We are going full speed ahead by means of industrialization to socialism, leaving behind our traditional ‘Russian’ backwardness . . .We are becoming a country of metal, a country of the automobile, a country of the tractor.”[7]
A woefully under-addressed catastrophic danger within socialism is that by the time Marxian-socialism, working with other socialists (including the DSA), has destroyed America’s present capitalist economy, reliance on personal responsibility, meritocracy, and republic form of government to set up socialism, the transformation will be so advanced that the economy will be dominated by centralized production and crucial entities will be well established as collective ownership enterprises. As things begin to degenerate, it will be too late to restore the country to its state of capitalist success. Because the process not only changed the culture and economy, but it also changed the people and their mindset from personal responsibility and freedom to dependency on the government and collectivism.
In his essay “Liberation,” Marcuse said, “It follows that the radical change which is to transform the existing society into a free society must reach into a dimension of the human existence hardly considered in Marxian theory–the -biological- dimension in which the vital, imperative needs and satisfactions of man assert themselves. Inasmuch as these needs and satisfactions reproduce a life in servitude, liberation presupposes changes in this biological dimension, that is to say, different instinctual needs, different reactions of the body as well as the mind.”[8]
If the move is to Democratic socialism, the country will lose its wealth and will to maintain a protective military. In doing so, it becomes defenseless against a Marxist takeover. The European socialist countries that the DSA uses as examples of successful socialism depend primarily on NATO and America to protect them. It is not merely because they are small; they do not value investing in military strength. President Trump had to take decisive steps to get countries like Germany to pay their fair share of NATO. They were content to depend on America, but if Marxian-socialism is successful, there will be no military power like America to thwart the current host of dictators and would-be world dictators waiting in the wings. America will not be able to protect itself, much less any other state in danger of losing its freedom; without America as a superpower, all states will be at risk of losing their freedom.
Democratic socialists think their emphasis on democracy and socialism as both a means and an end provides a safe path for avoiding communism. I do not concern myself with socialism as an end product as much as I do with it being part of the method to get to the end, which it is in both socialism and communism. I find nothing in the communist utopian vision that indicates communism will be content to stop their pursuit of communism at the socialist state of socialism. Remember, Marxists pursue socialism as much as pure socialists, but they do so as merely a transitory state. If socialists make America a socialist state, which will include weakening America’s military power, who will stop communists from overrunning them in their utopian quest for a state of communism? From what we know about communism and socialism, the only answer is no one!
I think the Italian neo-Marxist Antonio Gramsci is right about socialism, particularly forms such as DSA. Regarding the error of socialism, Gramsci wrote, “The Socialists have simply accepted, and frequently in a supine fashion, the historical reality produced by capitalist initiative. They have acquired the same mistaken mentality as the liberal economists: they believe in the perpetuity and fundamental perfection of the institutions of the democratic state. In their view, the form of these democratic institutions can be corrected, touched up here and there, but in fundamentals must be respected.”[9]
An alarming amount of people view communism and socialism as mutually exclusive, but that is a grave error. It is more accurate to see the major difference in that socialists believe socialism to be an end state. In contrast, communists believe it to be a necessary transitionary state to get to the final stage of communism. Therefore, communists will work with socialists in moving from capitalism to socialism, but once there, they will trample underfoot the socialists to bring in full communism.
Gramsci draws this distinction quite clearly, saying, “We, on the other hand, remain convinced, in the light of the revolutionary experiences of Russia, Hungary and Germany, that the socialist state cannot be embodied in the institutions of the capitalist state. We remain convinced . . . the socialist state must be a fundamentally new creation . . . The socialist state is not yet communism, i.e., the establishment of a practice and an economic way of life that are communal; but it is the transitional state whose mission is to suppress competition via the suppression of private property, classes, and national economies. The mission cannot be accomplished by parliamentary democracy. So the formula ‘conquest of the state’ should be understood in the following sense: replacement of the democratic parliamentary state by a new type of state, one that is generated by the associative experience of the proletarian class.”[10]
In the socialist’s quest to dismantle America’s capitalist economy, reliance on individual responsibility, the freedom to live out one’s life based on their own choices, and military strength, the communists will work with and through liberals, progressives, and socialists, thereby giving the appearance of supporting their end goals. But, in actuality, communism only supports these groups and whoever else will aid their ultimate cause until they are no longer needed in their pursuit of dismantling and replacing America’s capitalist economy and republic form of government, liberalism, progressivism, and socialism with communism. Now, powers like America keep communism from overtaking small and weak socialist countries, but when America is weakened by socialism or even becomes a socialist country, who will do so? America has defended and saved free countries from communism, but when America becomes a socialist state, who will protect them and her?
[1] I use Marxian-socialism to refer to the socialism embedded in Marxism, and the Marxist presence in socialism in varying degrees, as well as the commonalities Marxism and socialism share.
[2] Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance” online para. 41, from A Critique of Pure Tolerance by Robert Paul Wolff, Barrington Moore, Jr. and Herbert Marcuse (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), found online at https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/publications/1960s/1965-repressive-tolerance-fulltext.html, accessed 3/26/21.
[3] AfroMarxist, “Herbert Marcuse Interviewed by Helen Hawkins (1979),” YouTube, October 27, 2017, 4:44–4:53, 5:05–5:45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhzKyvLbY8M, accessed 10/23/21.
[4] Herbert Marcuse, Counter-Revolution and Revolt (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), 55.
[5] Herbert Marcuse, Counter-Revolution and Revolt (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), 56.
[6] “About Us” Democratic Socialists of America, paras. 4–6, https://www.dsausa.org/about-us/ accessed 6/21/22.
[7] Stephen Kotkin, Stalin: Waiting for Hitler 1929–1941 (New York: Penguin, 2017), 28.
[8] Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation, 17, found online https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/1969/essay-liberation.pdf, accessed 8/2/21.
[9] The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings, 1916–1935, edited by David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 86.
[10] The Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings, 1916–1935, edited by David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 86–87.